“And you’re okay with believing that life has no meaning?”

“What choice do I have? This is what life is.”

Another spoon of foam and more laughter from him. “So no fate, no destiny, no meant-to-be for you?”

“I am not a nincompoop,” I say, definitely enjoying myself more than I should be.

He loosens his tie and relaxes back into his chair. A strand of his hair escapes his ponytail, and I watch as he tucks it behind his ear. Instead of pushing him away, my nihilism is only making him more comfortable. He seems almost merry.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so charmingly deluded,” he says, as if I’m a curiosity.

“And you find that appealing?” I ask.

“I find it interesting,” he says.

I take a look around the café. Somehow, it’s filled up without me noticing. People line the bar, waiting for their orders. The speakers are playing “Yellow Ledbetter” by Pearl Jam—another one of my favorite nineties grunge-rock bands. I can’t help it. I have to close my eyes to listen to Eddie Vedder mumble-sing the chorus.

When I open them again, Daniel is staring at me. He shifts forward so his chair is grounded again on all four legs. “What if I told you I could get you to fall in love with me scientifically?”

“I would scoff,” I say. “A lot.”

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION to the grandfather paradox is the theory of multiverses originally set forth by Hugh Everett. According to multiverse theory, every version of our past and future histories exists, just in an alternate universe.

For every event at the quantum level, the current universe splits into multiple universes. This means that for every choice you make, an infinite number of universes exist in which you made a different choice.

The theory neatly solves the grandfather paradox by positing separate universes in which each possible outcome exists, thereby avoiding a paradox.

In this way we get to live multiple lives.

There is, for example, a universe where Samuel Kingsley does not derail his daughter’s life. A universe where he does derail it but Natasha is able to fix it. A universe where he does derail it and she is not able to fix it. Natasha is not quite sure which universe she’s living in now.

Area Boy Attempts to Use Science to Get the Girl

I wasn’t kidding about the falling-in-love-scientifically thing. There was even an article in the New York Times about it.

A researcher put two people in a lab and had them ask each other a bunch of intimate questions. Also, they had to stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes without talking. I’m pretty sure I’m not getting her to do the staring thing with me right now. To be honest, I didn’t really believe the article when I read it. You can’t just make people fall in love, right? Love is way more complicated than that. It’s not just a matter of choosing a couple of people and making them ask each other some questions, and then love blossoms. The moon and the stars are involved. I’m certain of it.

Nevertheless.

According to the article, the result of the experiment was that the two test subjects did indeed fall in love and get married. I don’t know if they stayed married. (I kinda don’t want to know, because if they did stay married, then love is less mysterious than I think and can be grown in a petri dish. If they didn’t stay married, then love is as fleeting as Natasha says it is.)

I pull out my phone and look up the study. Thirty-six questions. Most of them are pretty stupid, but some of them are okay. I like the staring-into-the-eyes thing.

I’m not above science.

HE TELLS ME ABOUT SOME study involving a lab and questions and love. I am skeptical and say so. I’m also slightly intrigued but don’t say so.

“What are the five key ingredients to falling in love?” he asks me.

“I don’t believe in love, remember?” I pick up my spoon and stir my coffee, even though there’s nothing to stir together.

“So what are the love songs really about?”

“Easy,” I say. “Lust.”

“And marriage?”

“Well, lust fades, and then there are children to raise and bills to pay. At some point it just becomes friendship with mutual self-interest for the benefit of society and the next generation.” The song ends just as I finish talking. For a moment all we can hear are glasses clinking and milk frothing.

“Huh,” he says, considering.

“You say that a lot,” I say.

“I could not disagree with you more.” He adjusts his ponytail without letting his hair fall into his face.

Observable Fact: I want to see his hair fall into his face.

The more I talk to him, the cuter he gets. I even like his earnestness, despite the fact that I usually hate earnestness. The sexy ponytail may be addling my brain. It’s just hair, I tell myself. Its function is to keep the head warm and protect it against ultraviolet radiation. There’s nothing inherently sexy about it.

“What are we talking about again?” he asks.

I say science at the same time that he says love, and we both laugh.

“What are the ingredients?” he prompts me again.

“Mutual self-interest and socioeconomic compatibility.”

“Do you even have a soul?”

“No such thing as a soul,” I say.

He laughs at me as if I’m kidding. “Well,” he says after he realizes that I’m not kidding, “My ingredients are friendship, intimacy, moral compatibility, physical attraction, and the X factor.”

“What’s the X factor?”